A conventional ironing board assembly may typically include an elongate, substantially rectangular ironing board that is supported by two pivotally connected, foldable legs. At one end the ironing board may have a tapering tip portion, while at an opposite end an iron rest may be provided. The ironing board may comprise a metal mesh table on an ironing side of which a cushioning and heat-dissipating felt pad may be disposed. The pad may be held in place by a textile ironing board cover, an outer side of which may provide for an ironing surface.
A drawback of such a conventional ironing board assembly is that the tapering tip of the ironing board is designed to be useful for ironing a variety of garments. As a result, it is typically not suited for any garment in particular. WO 2010/001120 (Toutounchian) acknowledges this and discloses an ironing board assembly that includes an ironing board and three wing shaped extensions. A front end of the ironing board is shaped to include three adjacent, equally spaced arcs, whereas each wing shaped attachment includes an edge having an arc that is complementary to the arcs of the ironing board. Each wing shaped attachment may be adapted to be detachably connectable to the ironing board at any of the three adjacent arcs so as to extend the ironing surface. Accordingly, wing shaped attachments may or may not be connected to the ironing board as desired to provide for a total of eight different ironing surface configurations.
WO '120 discloses that an attachment may be fitted to the ironing board by means of a tongue-and-recess provision. WO '120 further suggests that the wings may be fitted to the tip of the ironing board in other ways. The wings may, for example, be hinged to an underside of the ironing board, or the wings may slide out of the board and be retractably stored therein. Precisely what kind of fittings are envisaged here is unclear, not in the least because the application text (including its claims) stresses the fact that the attachments are adapted to detachably couple to the ironing board and no such detachable hinging or retractably-sliding fitting is described in constructional detail.
However, irrespective of the precise construction, detachably connectable attachments themselves are considered undesirable because the attachments may easily get misplaced. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide for an ironing board assembly featuring an ironing board with an ironing surface that may be reconfigured without the use of detachable attachments.